Endogamy was the preferred practice in many parts of theancient Near East;[1] the ideal marriage, in fact, was usually oneto a cousin, and it was often forbidden for an eldest daughter to even marry outside of the family at all.[1] Other endogamous relationships, namelyavunculate marriages andsibling marriages, while considered incestuous by most of the world today, were also common among a number of ancient Eastern societies, such as that ofAncient Egypt andAncient China.[2]
Biblical commentary onhuman sexual behaviour is less critical for events that are described as taking place before theLaw of Moses was issued byGod to theIsraelites. For example, theBook of Genesis discusses the marriage ofAbraham andSarah without criticizing Abraham's claim that they were half-siblings,[3] and theBook of Samuel treats the marriage of a royal prince to his half-sister as simply unusual, rather than wicked.[1]
InGenesis 9:20–27,Ham saw his fatherNoah's nakedness. TheTalmud suggests that Ham may havesodomized Noah (Babylonian TalmudSanhedrin 70a). In more recent times, some scholars have suggested that Ham may have had intercourse with his father's wife.[4][5]
Abraham's brotherNahor married his nieceMilcah, the daughter of his other brotherHaran.[6]
Living in an isolated area after the destruction ofSodom and Gomorrah, thetwo daughters ofLot conspired to inebriate and seduce their father due to the lack of availablesexual partners.[7] Because of intoxication, Lot "perceived not" when his first-born daughter, and the following night his younger daughter, lay with him. (Genesis 19:32–35) The two children born were directly Lot's sons and indirectly his grandsons, being his daughters' sons. Likewise, their sons were also half-brothers (between them and with their mothers), having the same father, as well as cousins, having mothers that were sisters.[8]
In one of the tales ofa wife confused for a sister,Abraham states that his wifeSarah is his half-sister—the daughter of his father, but not his mother.[3] However, inrabbinic literature, Sarah is considered Abraham's niece (the daughter of his brother, Haran).[3]
Marriage of cousins was common in the pre-Sinai period. Abraham's sonIsaac marriedRebekah, his first cousin once removed, the granddaughter of his father Abraham's brother Nahor with Milcah.[9]
Isaac and Rebekah's firstborn sonEsau resorted to marrying his cousin Mahalath, daughter of his father's brotherIshmael because his parents did not approve of him having relationships with Canaanites.[10]
Isaac and Rebekah's second sonJacob married his cousinsLeah andRachel, who were daughters of his mother's brotherLaban.[11] Leah and Rachel were sisters; a wife's sister is also forbidden.
Jacob's firstborn sonReuben had sex with his father's concubineBilhah.[12]
Judah, Jacob's fourth son, mistook his daughter-in-lawTamar for aprostitute while she was veiled, and had sex with her.[13]
Amnon,King David's eldest son andheir to the throne, raped his half-sisterTamar. Tamar's brother,Absalom, learned of the incident and, two years later, ordered his servants to have Amnon killed.[16] In vain with Amnon, Tamar said, "Now therefore, I pray thee, speak unto the king; for he will not withhold me from thee".[17]
Absalom, son of King David, in the middle of a rebellion against his father, had sex with his father'sconcubines on the roof inside a tent.[18]
Zelophehad's daughters, Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah, married their cousins on their father's side to obey the Lord's command. The Lord said: "no inheritance shall be transferred from one tribe to another".[23][24]
Caleb said, "I will give my daughter Acsah in marriage to the one who attacks and captures Kiriath-sepher." Othniel, son of Caleb's brother Kenaz, was the one who conquered it, so Acsah became Othniel's wife.[25]
Leviticus 18:7–11 and20:11–21 sets out lists of prohibited relationships, and two chapters later specifies punishments for such unions, but the second list of unions is much shorter than the first.Critical scholars regard the lists as having originally been independent documents, bound together at a later point.[26][27][28] TheDeuteronomic Code gives a yet more simple list of prohibited relationships – a man's parent's daughter (including his sister), a man's father's wife (including his mother), and a man's mother-in-law.[29][30] In theHebrew Bible, sexual relationships between siblings are forbidden to Jews but permissible toGentiles (non-Jews).[31]
One of the most notable features of each list is that sexual relations between a man and his own daughter is not explicitly prohibited. Although the first relation mentioned after the Levitical prohibition of sex with "near kin" names that of "thy father",[32] it must be taken into account that the Hebrew original text only addresses male Jews with regard to their female relatives.[33] The Talmud argues that the absence is because the prohibition wasobvious, especially given the proscription against a relationship with a granddaughter,[34] although somebiblical scholars have instead proposed that it was originally in the list, but was then accidentally left out from the copy on which modern versions of the text ultimately depend, due to a mistake by the scribe.[35] The second list in the Holiness code noticeably differs from the first by not including the closer relatives, and it might be assumed thatobviousness is the explanation here as well.[1] One might argue that the explicit prohibition against engaging in sexual activity with a woman as well as with her daughter,[36] implicitly forbids sexual activity between a man and his daughter. However, the rationale might suggest otherwise (the original text is unclear here), since it mentions only that "they" (i.e., the woman and the daughter) are related.[37]John Calvin did not consider the father-daughter-relation to be explicitly forbidden by the Bible, but regarded it as immoral nevertheless.[38]
Apart from the case of the daughter, the first incest list in Leviticus roughly produces the same rules as applied in early (pre-Islamic) Arabic culture;[1] inIslam, these pre-Islamic rules were made statutory.[35]
Ezekiel implies[35] that, in his time, marriage between a man and his stepmother, or his daughter-in-law, or his sister, were frequent.[39] This situation seems to be the target of the Deuteronomic version of the incest prohibition, which only addresses roughly the same three issues[1][35] (though prohibiting the mother-in-law in place of the daughter-in-law). Early rabbinic commentators instead argue that the Deuteronomic list is so short because the other possible liaisons wereobviously prohibited, and these three were the only liaisons difficult to detect, as, in their day, a man's stepmother, half-sister, and mother-in-law usually lived in the same house as the man (prior to any liaison).[40]
^Bassett, Frederick W. (1971). "Noah's Nakedness and the Curse of Canaan a Case of Incest?".Vetus Testamentum.21 (2):232–237.doi:10.2307/1517286.JSTOR1517286.
^Bergsma, John Sietze; Hahn, Scott Walker (2005). "Noah's Nakedness and the Curse on Canaan (Genesis 9:20-27)".Journal of Biblical Literature.124 (1):25–40.doi:10.2307/30040989.JSTOR30040989.ProQuest214611724.
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906)."incest".The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.